2018 Canadian Discount Brokerage Review & 2019 Preview

Questrade 2018 Year in Review

2018 was a huge year for Questrade. Early in the year, there was an enormous spike in trading volume which caused multi-day outages among many brokers, but our technology team did a great job keeping our platforms online and stable through all the traffic. Which is one of the reasons why this was our best year ever in terms of new customers. We grew to over $8 billion in assets under administration and were named as one of Canada’s best managed companies for the 7th year in a row.

We were very busy throughout the year launching numerous updates across all of our trading platforms and client touch points (including the addition of two-step verification for logging into your Questrade account), as well as a fresh batch of commercials to encourage Canadians to question their status quo so they can retire faster and wealthier.

Here are some of the new features we launched in 2018 that we’re most excited about:

Mobile app improvements

Introduced biometric login

Added support for Android Fingerprint ID and Apple Touch ID

Added support for Apple Face ID

Enhanced the account activity area

Now you can access a historic report of all transactions in all your Questrade accounts, right from your phone

Introduced new mobile-first charting

Powered by ChartIQ we rebuilt our charting solution from the ground-up using best-in-class technology to create a responsive user-friendly experience

These new charts are also being added to Questrade Trading to further improve the chart experience for web users

Questrade IQ Edge — advanced desktop trading platform

Improved chart layout to make axis information easier to read

Added a number of venues to Time and Sales data

Option order entry enhancements to make it easier and faster to add options

Quote window improvements with after-hours data added

Improved security-lending process for short orders, allowing clients to self-serve and see borrow rate more easily (also applied to Questrade Trading)

Screener upgrades

Released practice version of IQ Edge for Mac

Questrade Website

Completely redesigned and relaunched Questrade.com with a focus on making it easier and faster to use, especially for the new investors who are joining us in record numbers

Streamlined the online Portfolio Questionnaire to make it faster and easier to get the portfolio that will help you get to your goals.

What motivated the changes you implemented?

Questrade is focused on helping Canadians become much more financially successful and secure. That’s why we provide the most innovative and cost efficient financial services online. Our goal is for nothing short of a revolution in the financial services choices currently available to Canadians.

What do you feel most proud and excited about?

At Questrade, we’re excited about helping Canadians keep more of their money. To us, we get up in the morning knowing that we’re making people’s lives better. Bringing them products and services that are easy to use and easy to understand, so they can take control of their financial future. We’re excited to continue serving Canadians in 2019 and beyond.

What will Questrade be focusing on for 2019?

We never stand still here and have a lot of improvements planned. We’ll continue to use technology to create easier ways to invest and continue being the advocate for Canadians, reminding them to ask tough questions about their money.